


I need your help (I can’t fight this forever)

by Deeambles



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Hopeful Ending, brief wound description, not bad I dont think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-09 08:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20991890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deeambles/pseuds/Deeambles
Summary: Guilt and fear can manifest in strange ways.Or, Where Madara ended up in between his canon deaths and just who he found there.





	I need your help (I can’t fight this forever)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloweenie

The first time Madara dies, it’s after Hashirama stabs a sword through his back and tells him no friend, foe, or family will stand in his way of his ambition.  
  
Good for you, he thinks, after saying something completely different and falling to his knees. He vaguely remembers hitting the water before blinking open his eyes to some place nothing short of an abyss.  
  
It’s peaceful, actually, the ground is varying shades of black and the sky and horizon is one long gradient of white.  
  
He turns around out of curiosity only to choke on a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  
  
Izuna raises an eyebrow at his sputtering and shakes his head fondly. A small smile graces his face and it’s directed at Madara, and not malicious at all.  
  
He looks... well, good, no, _great_ even. Both of his eyes are in his sockets despite Madara knowing their technically in his own, and he doesn’t look sickly like he did before his death.  
  
No sweat matting his hair, no wound on his side draining the blood from his face, no tears of pain or discomfort, and he’s not in that horrible white yukata either.  
  
“Izuna.” He whispers and reaches a hand out. He wants so bad to hug him, but he doesn’t know... what if Izuna—  
  
“Aniki.” Izuna smiles in return before flickering his eyes down to Madara’s arm and frowning.  
  
Something in Madara cracks, does he not want—  
  
“What is that?” He asks curiously, although there’s no hurt or disgust present in his voice.  
  
Madara lets out a shaky breath and tells himself it’s from sheer relief before glancing down at his arm himself.  
  
Black goo hands off in waves, falling down into a long abyss beneath the black under his feet.  
  
Madara suddenly remembers he’s not supposed to be dead. Not for long.  
  
“No” he whispers, as his feet start to sink down, “No, please—“  
  
“Aniki” Izuna says, his voice is confused laced with panic.  
  
“No!” He shouts snapping his head up, “don’t get close!”  
  
Izuna stops but his face has fallen into something like grief mixed with denial. How familiar.  
  
“Madara?” He asks, but he’s already up to his thighs and his hands are dragged down and stuck to his sides.  
  
“It’s okay, little brother, just don’t please don’t get close.”  
  
Izuna backs up but he’s drowning, and Madara would do anything to stay if he could. He regrets so so much.  
  
He activates his Sharingan. Or he tries but apparently that was the wrong answer because the white sky brightens beyond sight and suddenly he’s blinking his eyes open to a dark ceiling with the sudden urge to puke.  
  
He does, and there’s no memories of Izuna recorded either, despite Madara looking right at him. He can only remember before.  
  
“You’re back.” Zetsu coos before taking the chunk of flesh Madara just puked into a makeshift sink.  
  
He’s back, he thinks miserably.  


* * *

  
  
The second time Madara dies he’s old and dependent on the shitty life support of a tree.  
  
His last breath shakes and he manages to have one more cohesive thought that can only be described as the severe disappointment that this death rings so short compared to his last one.  
  
Just an old man, surrounded by beings that could never be described as people and a boy waiting to take his eyes.  
  
Pathetic.  
  
When he blinks away the dust he realizes he’s lying in the black goop this time, and he slowly sits up so to not have the traction pull him back down.  
  
When he finally stands it slides off like a scarf and he finds himself free to move from it.  
  
A quick glance at his surroundings give him deja vu as the white sky glitters in his arrival.  
  
He turns around, hoping to see Izuna again only to fiercely wish he had been struck disappointed instead.  
  
Izuna is there but he’s kneeling just on the edge of the goo pit with his knees stained black and his side coated red.  
  
Madara runs to him but doesn’t dare pull him into a hug for fear of injuring him more.  
  
“Little brother.” He whispers and Izuna opens his eyes, pain clearly evident within them.  
  
“Aniki” he returns, as he struggles with a little smile, “you’re back.”  
  
“Shhh. Don’t worry about me.” He says. Izuna looks exactly like the day Tobirama struck him down.  
  
He’s still in the Uchiha blacks but the blood still coats in hands and pants and shirt and everything else it touches with red, red, red.  
  
Damn damn think, madara, _think_  
  
“Ani— aniki.” Izuna chokes  
  
Madara shakes his head, “Don’t talk.”  
  
Izuna just huffs in frustration, the brat, “Nii-san.” He says again, “look”  
  
Madara slowly turns his head over his shoulder, but there’s nothing there, to his relief, until when he looks back and Izuna is dressed in white, red streaking from his eyes and his breathing as labored as it was on the very last day he lived.  
  
“What” Madara huffs, “how—“  
  
“It’s okay” Izuna interrupts, falling into a slouch against Madara chest, “I’ll take your pain.”  
  
“No, never, Izuna!” Madara screams but he can’t move his arms, his feet, his face. Can’t hold Izuna, or provide comfort, and the lump in throat becomes so big he chokes, shutting his eyes in pain.  
  
When he opens them again, it’s dark. The weight on his chest isn’t gone, so much nullified to some other type of feeling he’s not sure how to describe. It’s nearly like he put on a muffler and his senses didn’t so much dull as it’s simply like an echo of between himself and his body.  
  
In fury, he kicks out, and the lid of the coffin goes flying. He’s met with sand, and an army, and his body feels off for whatever reason.  
  
Thankfully, he’s got thousands of people to take it out on, the annoying flying fuck be damned.  


* * *

  
The third time he dies looking up at Hashirama, his old friend, and promising to have a drink.  
  
He’s not sure when he closes his eyes that time, but when he opens them Izuna is not behind him, but instead in front, standing fully with no sign of a wound, in his favored high collared cloak.  
  
It takes Madara a second to wade out of the goo and realize that the whites of Izuna’s eyes are nearly as black as the ground and his skin is off white and cracked.  
  
The blank look he’s giving him is nye unreadable and suddenly Madara feels like crying.  
  
Why? Where is Hashirama? Why is his brother like this? What did he do? Why why _why_—  
  
“Aniki.” Izuna says. His voice should never sound like gravel being dumped to be trampled on but—  
  
“Madara.” He says again, reaching a hand out.  
  
Madara stares. There’s no goo or gravity to hold him back. He could just, take it. That would be that. He’d finally get his little brother even if it was some half grave robbed version. And how does that work?  
  
Madara gently reaches his hand out but before he can place it in the not!Izunas hand, someone’s yelling from far away and Madara looks around till he sees what look likes Hashirama sprinting towards him.  
  
He’s waving, and shouting and he looks alarmed but Madara just smiles and waves back confusedly cause there’s nothing to be alarmed about? It’s just him and Izuna and maybe he’s just upset there’s no alcohol and he’s come to apologize. That would make sense, he’s done weirder, after all.  
  
He turns back to Izuna but his little brother his frowning, head cocked like he’s listening to something Madara can’t hear and—  
  
And, well, he shoves Madara back into the goo.  
  
Madara sinks but if this is what Izuna wants then, this is what Izuna gets.  
  
His vision as nearly been covered before he’s being yanked back up by Hashirama who despite being right in front of him sounds as if he’s yelling from the other side of a great canyon.  
  
Madara shakes his head. He just wants to lay down but Hashirama holds fast.  
  
“—et go, m-d—ra!” He yells  
  
“You nee— o— et g—!”  
  
“What?” Before shaking his head confusedly, “I thought you wanted a drink.” He asks instead.  
  
Hashirama pauses where he’s got a death grip on Madara’s arm, and he’s knee deep in the black pit. Although, Madara finds, the goo parts around him like oil on water, leaving only clear liquid around his knees. It also seems like he can hear him clearly but not the other way around.  
  
“—es!” Hashirama seemingly agrees, “-et— go!”  
  
He looks panicky so Madara rolls his eyes and tries to get up but the goo pulls tight like elastic and he grits his teeth.  
  
Suddenly, Hashirama has his hands on Madara’s shoulder and his voice rings clear and true.  
  
“You have to leave that behind old friend.”  
  
Madara blinks at the sudden change and struggles some more.  
  
“I’m trying, you overgrown tree—”  
  
“It’s not simply physical.” Hashirama says quietly.  
  
“There’s other baggage you need to discard yourself of.”  
  
Madara briefly wonders when Hashirama became a wise old sage before realizing just what he means.  
  
“No.” He says, cold and hard.  
  
“Yes.” Hashirama says, kind yet cool.  
  
“It’s not him.” He whispers at Madara’s denial, “let me prove it.”  
  
He stands and extends an arm to Madara and it’s a near mocking of the day he should’ve accepted that hand the first time, and with Edo tensei!Izuna standing not three feet away—  
  
Well, he knows what happens when he turned the hand away the first time. Uchiha Madara is many things, but he does not repeat his mistakes.  
  
He reaches out and takes Hashirama’s hand and lets the man pull him up, slime dripping off his body in waves, yet some still stubbornly clinging to his hair and hands.  
  
“We can work on the rest.” Hashirama says smiling, “come on.”  
  
And Madara does.


End file.
